Faction head of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Ralph Brinkhaus has predicted the country could see a Muslim chancellor by as early as 2030.
Despite being named the Christian Democratic Union, Brinkhaus said the party sees opportunities for non-Christians to rise in the ranks and possibly even become the leader of the party and chancellor, Bild reports.
“In some regions, only a fraction of the population belongs to a church. That is why Muslims who share our values — human dignity, personal responsibility, solidarity — and the Basic Law are welcome to join the CDU,” Brinkhaus said.
“For me, it is not decisive to which religion a person belongs, but what values he has. The CDU is not a religious community — that sets us apart from the Catholic Church in which I am a member,” he added.
While Christianity is on a downward trend in Germany, not everyone approves of Brinkhaus’s comments including a poll taken by Bild which revealed that while 730 people were could imagine a Muslim CDU Chancellor, 11,745 could not.
Saxony CDU deputy Veronika Bellmann also disagrees with Brinkhaus saying that the Islamic faith itself was incompatible with the CDU and its values.
“Today they are secular and tomorrow again faithful,” Bellman said, speaking on the subject of secular Muslims.
Frank Pasemann of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) also slammed the comments saying, “The group chairman of the CDU in the German Bundestag, Ralph Brinkhaus cordially invites all Muslims to join them. He can also imagine a Muslim chancellor. By the way, the ‘C’ in CDU sometimes stood for ‘Christian’!”
Demographics in Germany are rapidly transforming as a result of mass migration according to several reports which could lead to a Muslim chancellor in the near future.
In Frankfurt, native Germans became a minority in 2017 and in the western half of the country around 42 percent of children under the age of six now come from migrant backgrounds.